The campaign for Israel’s March elections is just picking up pace, and a major party, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman’s Yisrael Beiteinu, is reeling from announcing of a major bribery and corruption scandal involving a number of top officials.
Israeli police have detained some 30 officials past and present from the party, many of them with connections to the party’s top leadership. The party claims the effort is political in nature, and trying to hurt them before the vote.
But the evidence for corruption seems strong, and Lieberman’s claims he is “unaware” that there is even an investigation doesn’t seem to hold water.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is facing probes of his own, within his party, and Likud’s comptroller has disqualified the PM from running for the Likud leadership because of misuse of party funds.
Netanyahu has been facing internal opposition in Likud from the far-right, and assuming the comptroller’s ruling stands, he may well be finished as a top leader in the party.
Is the guy in the photo pinching pennies, or what?
He's showing Palestinians how much he cares about the peace process.
He's showing people either how small his junk is, or how little common sense is leftover in the brain of this fanatic.
The whole leadership in Israel belongs in prison. Of course that will never happen.
To their credit, at least in israel they occasionally arrest corrupt politicians, something unthinkable in the US.
Rick; They indict them, arrest them then by a miracle, they are released to retire on the funds they stole. This has been the history of their illustrious leaders.
Indeed, as happened with the repulsive bouncer haterman. But some part of the process works. Someone orders their arrest and someone carries it out. We don't even get that much in the US.
“Hope you can count on” — Darkness, an illusion of good hiding a criminal intent
Obama was handed $2 billion by the corporate rich who own Wall Street and the banks ‘too big to fail’ to win the White House, whereupon in his first month in office he gave a $13 trillion bailout to the very ones who hand picked him for President. A most self-evident case of criminal fraud against we who are over taxed and austerity poor.
So, impeached and rotting behind bars for life should have been Obama and that is what makes him a most perfect fake President for our fake and make-believe government. For every working-class person in America now has such an intense anger toward the White House, that for a full eight years we all back away in discuss from government, allowing the corporate rich to have full control of government.
Rabin opposed the "greater Israel" scheme and was shot. Sharon opposed it and stroked. Olmert used the A (= Apartheid) word in opposition to it and was removed for scandal. Netanyahu was a semi-dove years ago the removed for scandal (but came back from the right). The menace Lieberman just came out against present steal-the-land policies and is now accused of scandal. These scandalous behaviors are no-doubt real, but the timing?
Corollary: Given the US's status as a no-privacy state, could a political reformist, even one pure as a saint, ever succeed in the US?
Please provide references where Rabin or Sharon were against a "greater Israel". Rabin was shot due to his support of a peace process with the Palestinians not any objections to a greater Israel. Sharon (and Begin) was a major war monger and invaded Lebanon in 1982 with the potential to keep territory up to the Litani River (always a goal of Zionism) but definitely with the intent to annex the West Bank during the crisis creating a "greater Israel". This invasion helped to create Hezbollah, which forced an end of the occupation of southern Lebanon by Israel. Netanyahoo was never anything close to being a dove. He was always "his father's son" and a rabid Zionist bent on explusion of the Palestinians and expanding territory. His father always told his son that the return of the Sinai in exchange for peace with Egypt was a major mistake and should never have happened. Netanyahoo never forgot his brother's death at Entebbe and has always been a hawk.
Chet, Thanks for your reply. What I mean by "greater Israel" is a Jewish state between the Jordan and the sea in. Rabin favored the Oslo Accords. Shortly after Sharon pulled out of Gaza he was talking about the need to close down at least some "settlements" or at least withdrawing IDF protections from them. Netanyahu cooperated with the Wye River project. All three of these were in the opposite direction of establishing "greater Israel". Nothing I wrote was intended to sanctify any of these three, but none of them would be acceptable to Israel's ruling right wing of today.
To — RickR30
Yes, but we are less then 1% and our job is not to change the world, but to enlighten those who will listen. And as they are also less then 1%, our job is to lighten up and let destiny have it’s glory.
Kind of hard to imagine – leaders who promote the theft of land and imposition of racist policies are also corrupt.
Given the level of corruption that is endemic in the Israeli government it is a scandal that US aid to it, unlike aid to other countries, is on the whole not audited. The amounts stolen and/or misdirected must be staggering. Would you buy a used car inspected in and imported from Israel?
There's very little in the MSM today, concerning Israeli corruption. It seems that they're keeping it under wraps. It's not exploding on front pages like the usual Israeli propaganda.
Only because they stole from Zionists.